THE POSY RING

by Ellen Farrell

Following the death of her mother Claire South is cared for by her aunt Fiona.  When Claire’s father also dies Fiona is left destitute, and Claire agrees to marry Grant Wilding, her profligate father’s employer, purely to settle Fiona’s financial future.  Claire, who will be studying abroad, will also have all her college expenses paid.  She will have no further contact with Grant. 

Some years later Fiona, a stained glass specialist, is killed in a traffic accident, and when Claire arrives to settle her affairs she is astonished to meet Grant at a dinner party.  She finds him attractive, intriguing, and he explains their separation in a fashion which satisfies their hosts’ curiosity.  They agree not to talk to others about what had happened between them while Claire attends to Fiona’s business matters with Brian Phillips, Fiona’s assistant, who had escaped the accident with his life. 

From his hospital bed Brian instructs Claire on what should be done. Grant calls by the workshop to leave a list of contact numbers, and Claire, who over the years has come to believe he must have been involved with Fiona, is overcome by a desire to know more about him and decides to find out where he is living even though she does not intend to maintain contact.  It is during a fruitless visit to his house in the village of Kirkham that she finds a posy ring. 

Claire runs Fiona’s business, starts a new job, and comes home one night to Fiona’s small apartment to  find Grant waiting.  He is indirectly an owner of the properties Fiona had rented, and, interested in Claire’s situation, tells her that he was never involved with Fiona in any way other than by helping her just after the death of Claire’s father.  He has found being married useful in keeping his own freedom - an idea which upsets Claire who, becoming increasingly involved, agrees to accompany him to a dinner party arranged by Jane, the daughter of Fiona’s friend Margaret Thompson.           

With Brian still in hospital, it seems that the workshop may fail.  Concerned that Grant should know what is happening Claire visits Kirkham once again, this time successfully finding his house.  He tells had she should do whatever she wishes with the workshop, and arranges to collect her the next day to take her to Jane’s dinner party.  On their return from the dinner party their car skids dangerously.  In the aftermath of the near disaster Grant tells Claire the full story of his involvement in the events immediately her father’s death, for which he feels overwhelmingly responsible.  Claire, distraught, asks him to leave. 

It is Margaret Thompson’s concern about Claire’s state of health that brings them together once again. With Fiona’s lease to be sold, he suggests that Claire move out to Kirkham - he will not be there himself.  He is, however, still at the house when she finds on an upstairs window another instance of the verse written inside the posy ring.  Convinced that the ring must belong to him she tells him of her find, but he dismisses her story and insists that the ring is now hers.

Alone at the Kirkham house she is visited by John Carroll, the lawyer who had arranged the legal framework surrounding her marriage to Grant.  He assumes that they are happily reunited and tells her what he remembers about her ring. 

When Grant returns he fills in the final details of what happened and they are, at last, re-united.

COME MICHAELMAS

by Ellen Farrell

At Hemingford General Hospital, Alice Bancroft, a ward sister, meets   senior consultant surgeon Lowell North in circumstances which cause her considerable embarrassment:  at a reception on what would have been her wedding day she has with utter seriousness suggested to him that they should start a family together.  Her embarrassment increases when she learns that they are to work together.  Concerned that he is watching her in order to find fault she is determined to give him no cause for complaint, and she is startled by his immediately caring behaviour when she is attacked by a patient.

When she is asked by Olivia, a friend, if she will stay at their house to supervise two visiting children, Alice agrees.  However,  is dismayed to find that the children are the son and daughter of Lowell North.  He, sufficiently distant, offers to sort out a different arrangement.  Alice, hurt and lonely and very susceptible, finds him attractive but combative, and she is at pains to explain that her concern is for the children. The situation brings Alice and Lowell together but the presence of the children keeps a measure of discreet separation between them.

The children are clever and funny and they like Alice and she likes them. There are mishaps, and even a near disaster when Lowell’s small daughter is lost. However, pretty Alice, with her wide interests and her willingness to have a go at practically anything, is entirely reliable, and she and Lowell manage their odd arrangement extremely well.  She learns more about his wife’s death and explains a little about her broken engagement, helps with a birthday regatta and realises that she is deeply in love.

Olivia, now pregnant, returns suddenly.   Alice is no longer needed Alice is no longer needed, and Lowell makes no attempt to suggest otherwise.  Just as she is thinking he may be involved with someone else, he is thinking the same of her.  They quarrel over her supposed preoccupation with her friend Walker and Alice concludes that Lowell has no further interest in her.  However, when she next meets him he says that he would have been more than willing to honour the plan they had discussed at their first meeting.  Alice supposes that he no longer wishes to do so, tells him that she too would have been willing  and immediately leaves.

Reunited at the September Ball but prevented her from saying too much, it is only after the great Michaelmas concert that their misunderstandings about his love for her and her unconditional love for him are finally resolved